


Every Prayer I ever Said

by faeleverte



Series: One for Three Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Best Friends Reunion, John Winchester's booze and crappy parenting, M/M, Pining, So many people make cameos, The burn it is so slow, and you won't believe how much pining there is in a fairly short work, canon minor character deaths mentioned, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeleverte/pseuds/faeleverte
Summary: Nine year old Dean's life is on a steady course. A steady, very boring, quite depressing course. And then a miracle happens.Thirty year old Dean's life is on a steady course. A steady, very boring, quite depressing course. And then a miracle happens.Must be his very own angel.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: One for Three Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/332566
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	Every Prayer I ever Said

The first time Castiel Novak showed up unexpectedly in Dean’s life, he clearly came as a direct answer to prayer.

Every night for as long as he could remember, his mother tucked him into bed each night, she whispered that angels were watching over him. Nice thought, that one, but none year old Dean thought that was a pretty mean trick– just _watching_ and leaving him to sit home alone all summer with only his tiny baby brother for company.

That was a lonely summer, with all his friends from school away at camps or on vacation to exciting places like St. Louis and Six Flags. The few who stayed in Lawrence, Kansas had paired off into “best friends” and didn't want Dean tagging along. Dean didn’t have a best friend. He didn’t really have all that many _good_ friends. It was obvious that angels were just jerks, since none of them would show up to keep him company. 

Just in case they were listening though, Dean prayed to them in his own way. After his mother would click on his night light, turn off the overhead, and close his door, Dean would dare an angel to show up and be his playmate, to be his friend.

And then a miracle happened, just two endless weeks into summer break.

A moving van pulled in at the ugly little house next door that had once belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Skimmer until they’d sold out to move to Florida (and Dean _really_ didn’t understand that one; why would old people want to move to Disney World?). Dean was playing in the yard, a stack of freshly filled water guns by his side and no one to shoot. Target practice had gotten boring, since the guns didn’t always shoot the same way every time. There weren’t any people around to aim for– at least none that wouldn’t get really _mad_ if he shot them. So the moving van with the two-door piece of foreign crap on the dolly on the back was about the only thing even a little bit interesting to look at. 

A man with shaggy curls and a tired face half-covered by a scraggly beard climbed down from the cab, and then the passenger door swung open to let out a girl around Dean’s age with long red hair. Even from that distance, Dean could see the blue of her eyes, and he thought she looked awfully pretty. She turned back to yell at the truck.

“Come _on_ , Cassie!” She took two steps and stopped. “Hurry up, or I’m gonna pick _both_ bedrooms as mine!”

Dean sighed and started collecting his guns to go back in the house. Just a couple of girls. Not that Dean _minded_ girls, but they usually didn’t want to play water guns or football, and his mom said he couldn’t have girls to sleepovers after he’d turned seven. Something about the other parents finding it improper. 

Whatever that meant.

“You can’t do that, Anna!’ A rusty voice, a _boy’s_ rusty voice called from the truck. “Dad! Anna says I won’t get a bedroom.”

The tired man sighed and rolled his eyes, walking toward the front door while he fished in his pocket. “There’s a room for each of you, and the other spare is my office. Now hurry up!”

The boy finally climbed down from the cab of the truck, appearing first as a pair of plain white tennis shoes on a pair of bare, skinny legs. Red shorts slid into view next, and then a blue t-shirt. Finally his head followed, topped with a shaggy mop of dark hair that curled out in strange directions. Under the sunlight, his eyes appeared even brighter than the girl’s, and Dean decided that this boy was even _prettier_ than his sister. He was on his feet to go say hello before he had time to think about it, water guns left in a pile that would get him yelled at by his father, John, the next afternoon.

“Hullo,” Dean said, when he was close enough to talk without having to yell. “‘M Dean Winchester. Your neighbor.” He pointed over his shoulder to show which one was his house. 

The boy blinked at him, blinked at Dean’s finger, and then blinked at Dean’s house. 

“I turned nine in January,” Dean tried next. “How old are you?”

The boy blinked at Dean again and then glanced toward the porch where his father was unlocking the door.

“I have to go,” he said, starting to turn away. Dean felt the hot sting of disappointment, and drew himself up to say something angry in reply, but the boy turned back at the last moment, reaching out to grab Dean’s shoulder, his small hand a hot, burning weight even through Dean’s t-shirt. “If it’s okay with my dad, maybe you can come over when I start putting stuff away in my room?”

Dean felt the grin growing on his face. “Yeah! Okay. I can help and everything!”

“Goodbye, Dean,” the boy said, dropping his hand and turning away again. 

“What’s your name?” Dean finally demanded, grabbing the boy’s wrist.

“I’m Castiel.” The boy lifted his chin a little defiantly. “It’s an _angel’s_ name.”

“Of course it is.” Dean snorted, and Castiel’s face flushed red.

“Don’t you make fun of me!” His eyes started to grow glassy with tears, and Dean slipped his hand down to Castiel’s, squeezing it tightly.

“I’m not!” Dean brought his free hand up to squeeze Castiel’s hand with both of them. “I know it is. It’s _got_ to be an angel’s name. That means we’re going to be best friends.”

“Okay.” Castiel nodded. He linked his fingers through Dean’s and squeezed back. “I’d like that.”

“See you around then, Cas.” Dean finally let go and backed away. “And if you need any help carrying boxes in or anything, just let me know. I’m really strong.”

Two hours later, Mary, Dean’s mother, sent him over carrying a pie, and Castiel opened the door to his ring.

“Hello, Dean.” He stared at the pie in Dean’s hands. “What’s that?”

“Apple pie!” Dean bounced on his toes. “My mom made it for you. She couldn’t come herself, because she’s gotta take care of Sammy. That’s my baby brother. He’s just one month old!”

“For me?” Castiel backed away slightly, squinting in confusion. 

“Your whole family, dummy.” Dean shoved the glass dish in Castiel’s direction. “Go on, take it. It’s my favorite.”

Castiel’s father came into the entry hall and looked down at the pie Dean held out.

“Who’s your friend, Cassie?” He stepped up close to catch the offered pie from Dean’s hands. 

“I’m Dean Winchester, sir.” Dean gestured at the pie and explained that his mother had sent it over with apologies for not bringing it herself, as she was tied up caring for the baby. 

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’,” Castiel’s dad scowled at the title, and Dean was confused. He’d been raised to call all men “sir” and all women “ma’am”, no exceptions. “I’m just Chuck. And you’d better come in and help us eat this.”

The sun had just dropped behind the horizon when Dean finally raced home, certain he’d be in trouble for missing his sunset curfew.

“I’m so sorry, Mom!” he shouted as he raced into the kitchen. “But I just got busy helping Cas unpack his room– he’s got _so_ many books, but no comics at all– and I _totally_ just lost track of time, and I was gonna come home sooner but I–”

He cut off as she pulled him into her arms. “It’s okay, Dean. Chuck called me and told me where you were before supper. I’m glad you have a friend so close.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed deeply, satisfied and full of both pie and happiness. “Yeah, he’s gonna be my _best_ friend. He promised. And he's nine, too. His birthday is just two months after mine!”

That night, lying in bed, Dean decided to forgive the angels for taking nine whole years to get around to bringing him Cas. Obviously it’d taken them a while to get him just exactly right. Dean pictured Cas’s serious blue eyes and the way he tilted his head when Dean referenced a movie or comic Cas didn’t know. Exactly, perfectly, wonderfully right. Obviously the angels had just packed up one of their own to send down to be Dean’s very best friend ever. 

In the moments before he drifted off to sleep, Dean prayed again, just to say thanks.

*****

Dean knew the moment he stopped believing in angels. He still offered up an occasional thanks for having Cas in his life, but not to angels. Not really. At least, not entirely anymore. 

November the second, in the wee hours of the morning, John had shaken Dean out of bed, handed him a blanket-wrapped bundle, and chased him out of a burning house into a terrifying night and a whole new world of heartache. John came out eventually, without Dean's mother and, apparently, without his own heart and soul.

The eight unending weeks his family–what was _left_ of his family– was out of the house were the emptiest days of Dean’s whole life, including all the years that came after. When at last they’d gone home to a Mary-less life, Cas had waded right back into Dean’s everyday world, and, while it didn’t _fix_ the hole in his heart, it at least shielded Dean from the worst of the emptiness.

As the years ticked by, John fell further into the bottom of his bottles, leaving Dean to care for his skinny, serious-eyed little brother. His business faltered and would have failed completely, but an old hunting buddy of his, Bobby Singer, moved down to Lawrence from Sioux Falls, South Dakota the January Dean turned twelve. Bobby took over the running of the garage, but he left the name alone; he said he had his name on the salvage yard he still owned in Sioux Falls. He somehow managed to keep John employed, but he couldn’t pay John for work not done, so John’s paychecks were often very short. Bills usually managed to get paid– eventually, anyway– but John usually drank what was left, leaving Dean to try to scrape together food for a hungry toddler.

Sam didn’t cry much, and Dean never remembered him throwing a single tantrum, but the slightest whine would set John’s fragile temper alight, so Dean tried to keep himself and the baby out of the house until John passed out. Cas’s home became a refuge for the two of them. They often had supper with Cas and his sister, Anael, just eleven months younger than Cas. Cas’s father, Chuck, frequently– _bemusedly_ – let Dean take over the kitchen, even letting Dean make a grocery list once a week. 

When they were fourteen years old, Dean woke in the night and sat up to study Cas’s face by moonlight. They shared a bed that night– they _always_ shared a bed when either of them slept over at the other one’s house. Cas murmured in his sleep, one hand reaching out toward Dean’s side, falling short and landing with a soft thump on the mattress between them. Dean reached right back, carefully fitting his fingers between Cas’s, lying back down gently. 

_They sent me the prettiest angel in Heaven_ , Dean thought, squeezing Cas’s hand tightly. 

He whispered his prayer of gratitude again, thanking the angels for sending him a best friend, a guardian spirit, and the best being he’d ever met, second to his mother of course, all in one beautiful form.

*****

One night, their sophomore year of high school, Dean found himself wondering if maybe Cas was really just another of the cruel jokes the whole world kept playing on him. 

Dean had taken to partying, probably more than a little too hard. He drank whatever was on offer, smoked several things his mother would probably have had _Words_ for him about smoking, and would fool around with any pretty girl that sort of smiled in his direction. Cas didn’t approve, but he always opened the window when Dean stumbled home too fucked up to unlock his own door without waking John from a drunken stupor on the couch. He would just sigh at Dean, his smile a little sad, and then half-carry Dean back to his own house. Once there, Cas would boost Dean up to the porch roof, let himself be pulled up after, and then they would both peek into Sammy’s room to make certain he was asleep. Then they crawled under the covers in Dean’s bed, and Cas would drift off to sleep while pretending to listen to Dean’s recounting of the party and just how far up a girl’s blouse he’d gotten to stick his hand that night.

The first time he got Cas to actually go _with_ him to a party, though, proved to be nearly more than Dean could handle. 

Cas turned out to be a handsy drunk, his always blue eyes going wider and more otherworldly the glassier they got. He crowded into Dean’s personal space, easily elbowing out the blonde cheerleader Dean had been trying to make progress with. Dean wanted to resent him for it, but somehow, having the full force of Cas’s attention, having the heat of his breath against Dean’s cheek as they argued about music, having the pressure of Cas’s hand against his wrist, his chest, his thigh...Dean forgot about the cheerleader, forgot about _all_ cheerleaders. When he later saw that douchebag Michael with both of his arms around the girl Dean had been trying to get with, he couldn’t even be bothered to give the slightest damn. After all, he was leaning into Cas’s side with their heads tipped close together, and they were having an utterly _enthralling_ discussion about Star Wars. 

When they got back to Dean’s room that night, Dean peeled off his jacket and his jeans and threw himself on the bed, same as he always did at night. Cas, though, Cas didn’t head straight to bed. He paced Dean’s room, looking at everything. He touched every tape and every book (as if he hadn’t given half of them to Dean himself). He trailed his fingers along the edges of the pictures thumbtacked over Dean’s desk. As he walked around, he slowly pulled off each piece of his clothing.

Dean had never noticed how beautiful the lines of Cas’s back were. He’d never gone dry-mouthed and hungry at the sight of Cas’s bare chest and muscle-padded ribs. When Cas got down to his tight blue briefs, Dean quit breathing. And then Cas pushed those down his legs, too, and stood in the center of Dean’s room, fully bare, golden in the glow of Dean’s bedside lamp, by far the most gorgeous, sexually appealing sight Dean had ever clapped eyes on. Dean flipped the covers over himself before Cas turned around to see just how much his bare self was appreciated.

“I miss her.” Cas sighed heavily and leaned over Dean’s nightstand to run his fingertip across the framed picture of Dean’s mom. “Mary was...she was the closest thing I ever had to a mother, you know? Mine was never...She was never. Well. _You_ know. I don’t know how you...how you’ve...I mean. If I miss her this much.” He turned his head, staring into Dean’s eyes from all of six inches away. “If I miss her this much, I can’t imagine how it is for you.”

Dean licked his lips and nodded. He tried to swallow, but his throat was so completely dry by then that all he got was a painful click. Cas tipped his head and squinted at him, and Dean could feel his own hands start shaking. And then, just to make his confusion complete, Cas climbed onto the bed and _over Dean’s bare chest_ to get to his own pillow. He leaned across Dean once more to turn out the bedside lamp and then sank down into the covers. Dean was horribly aware that the covers were covering nothing but a whole lot of naked Cas.

“You look like her.” Cas scooted closer in the already too-small bed. He reached up and ran one finger along the bridge of Dean’s nose. “You’re as beautiful as she was.”

Dean wanted. He wanted so badly, he _hurt_ with the blood in his dick, and he couldn’t breathe around the butterflies in his stomach. He also knew that, if he just leaned forward a little bit, Cas would meet his kiss and return it with enthusiasm, and they would have sex– first time for both of them– right there in Dean’s bed that they’d shared so innocently a thousand times before. So, out of sheer terror at the realization that he might be more than a little bit in love with his best friend, Dean did the most logical thing he could think of.

“You’re as beautiful as your face,” he snapped with all the sarcasm a fifteen year old boy could muster (quite a lot, to be honest), and he slapped Cas’s hand away from his face. He also rolled over to keep himself from temptation. 

Cas sighed heavily and rolled over, too, and, as soon as he knew it was safe, Dean rolled back into Cas, tucking up against his back as far as he could while keeping his hips well away and protected by several folds of the blanket blanket.

“Shut up and go to sleep, Cas,” Dean said, his voice thick and hazy from beer and exhaustion, nuzzling the back of Cas’s neck. Cas sighed again, laid his palm across the back of Dean’s hand that rested on his belly, and they both drifted off.

If Dean woke up more than once that night, fully hard and leaking in his underwear against Cas’s ass, if he needed to escape to the bathroom twice to take himself in hand so that he didn’t get off against Cas’s bare skin, he certainly never told. He also got himself a girlfriend as fast as he could. The following weekend, the only bare skin he was rubbing against was female and didn’t make him wonder exactly what was going on in his life, his head, his heart, or his underwear.

Several years later, Dean did eventually get over his Big Gay Panic enough to bed a couple guys. After John died, he even dated a couple of them. He never did manage to tell Cas about that night or the discoveries he’d made about himself: how much he’d wanted, how near he came to kissing Cas’s full, gorgeous mouth. In fact, Dean managed to push it away so successfully that he nearly forgot about it, himself. 

Nearly. 

Eventually, the only times he remembered that horrible revelation about his feelings toward Cas were the lonely nights after he and Lisa called it quits, when Dean had moved back home to take care of John and his declining health. When the little green house next door looked full of memories in the shadows of the evening. When Dean wished he had a friend to share the burden of his conflicting feelings toward his father. When Dean was tired and alone and too scared to pray for another angel-based miracle.

*****

Fifteen years after Cas moved away, six years after Sammy had headed for the West Coast to escape their father’s alcoholic tyranny, three and a half years after the death of John Winchester, two years after a massive business loan (and a very low purchase price) turned Winchester Mechanics into Winchester Automotive Repairs and Restoration, Dean still hadn’t gotten over the loneliness he’d felt when Cas’s flight to New York City had pulled away from the gate. If anything, it had just gotten worse, throbbing like a toothache that was somehow inside his chest instead of his mouth. 

That wasn’t to say Dean was without friends or family. He had plenty of them, whether he liked it or not. They liked to remind him that they were there, no matter how much he tried to block himself off. In fact, he was being reminded of that on the phone, loud and clear, on that particular Friday. 

“Hell, Ellen,” Dean ran his hand through his hair, sure he was making it stick up weirdly. He shifted his cell from one ear to the other. “You _know_ I miss you, but I’ve been slammed at the garage, and I have discovered that I’ve maybe gotten in over my head in the house remodel.”

Ellen was as good as a surrogate mom to him, had been since he was about twelve, in spite of being a widow with a small child, herself– or maybe _because_ of it. Maybe it was because of all the times she saw John Winchester drinking himself into oblivion at the bar she’d inherited from her husband. Whatever the reason, she cared about Dean, loved him unconditionally, and frequently bullied him to do better at taking care of himself. 

On the phone that morning, as he got himself gathered up to leave for work, he listened to her bitch him out a bit more as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. He _knew_ he would have been better off selling the house and moving someplace a bit more bachelor-friendly, so he agreed with her, laughing dryly. Truth was, he had always kinda imagined having a family, bringing them to live at his mom’s house. Raising kids within sight of the little green house where half his childhood memories lived. Ellen quit teasing him about remodeling the house without a partner and started in on him about living the bachelor life in general.

“Seriously, Dean-o,” she said, doing that thing where she went from laughing and happy to deadly serious in a blink. “Haven’t you been alone long enough? I mean, with you having both teams to choose from, you’d think it’d be easy for you to find someone to at least move in.”

Dean exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Before I can find someone to live with me,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully, “I have to find someone I can live with. And I find that, these days, I have a helluva lot less patience than I used to.”

“You’ve never had any patience, Dean.”

“Exactly the problem.” He grabbed his Poptarts as the toaster popped them up, stuffing one in his mouth and blowing around the too-hot filling. He gasped, “Oo ‘ot! _Ow!_ ”

“You have the table manners of a poorly raised monkey.” Ellen’s voice was both scathing and fond, a combination that only she could manage. “Go to work. And you’re coming over this weekend. Bring a date!”

He gulped, swallowing down the too-large bite in his mouth.“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be there. And I’ll see what I can do for company.”

“Charlie doesn’t count,” she snapped, hanging up immediately after to keep Dean from having time for a smart answer.

Halfway to work, Dean’s beautiful Baby, the ‘67 Impala he loved more than most people on Earth, started to make a worrying noise. Just a hint of a rattle hiding behind the growl of her motor, but it was enough to ratchet the tension in Dean’s neck to a ridiculous level. He owned a _garage_ , for God’s sake! He’d been a mechanic in skill since he was about ten years old, and he’d become an official mechanic in name and title shortling after leaving his teens. He’d started to make a name for himself doing classic car restoration. Having a car with a rattle was not only worrying, it was downright _embarrassing_. 

He blew out a frustrated huff; he could fix it when he got to work.

Of course, when he got to the garage, he found that his receptionist and one of his mechanics were out sick, and, given how short-handed he’d been since Irv's retirement toward the end of the summer, Dean spent the entire day with his arms in the bellies of a lot of cars that weren’t Baby, regretfully delaying the work he’d planned to do on the sad but sweet ‘65 Barracuda in the back corner. He’d gotten her cheap, and he _needed_ to get the work done in time for the shows the following summer. Get her out there and get some more chatter for himself and his work. Little publicity to get the garage moving further away from fixing up local clunkers and onto restoring classics and tuning up exotics.

He never had wanted to show Baby. She might be overall pretty enough, but he’d kept her as a car to drive and love, not as a showpiece that he couldn’t enjoy taking on the highway and opening up. However, that meant he needed to start from scratch, getting something fixed up from the ground up. The ‘Cuda would do nicely. If he could find another mechanic to do some of the day to day work. And maybe some office help so he could hand over some of the paperwork. And a second receptionist, so he didn’t have to answer the damned phones all the time.

Running his own business was all that he hoped it would be and more. It was also the biggest pain in the ass he could ever imagine. Some days he wondered if he could pitch the whole mess and get a nice, normal job in a boring office where he got paid for simply showing up.

*****

By the time he threw the last stack of invoices onto his desk to deal with in the morning, he’d forgotten all about Baby’s little noise. He locked up the office, double-checked that all the bay doors were secured, patted the ‘Cuda’s hood in apology, and headed for home. The Impala reminded him halfway home that he’d forgotten something. 

“Crap, girl,” he murmured with a gentle pat to the dash. “Sounds like something’s loose. I’ll take a look when we get home.”

He wished the days would hurry up and get longer, already. Working on his own car in his own driveway was one of his greatest joys. Going blind under the hood while trying to see large problems in the beam of a headlamp wasn’t actually fun for anyone. Still...he wasn’t going back to work the next day with his car making ridiculous noises. He left Baby in the driveway, put up the garage door, and got to work. 

The longer he stayed under the hood, the worse his mood got. He _was_ self-aware enough to realize he should have eaten something before starting on the car, but, now that he was going, food would just have to wait. He’d nearly finished tightening the last bolt when a weird wheeze made his head whip around. The glow of his headlamp showed a guy in dark pants and a white shirt, wearing a fancy-looking sweater, staring at him with eyes he’d have known anywhere.

So blue. The perfect shade of blue. The exact color Dean was looking for to paint his bedroom. Blue as the sky on endless summer days in childhood. Blue as love in the dark and tiny arms holding harder than they should be able to in a time of loss. Blue as...blue as Cas’s eyes. 

“Um, I didn’t mean to startle you.” In truth, Cas looked more startled than Dean felt. His face was pale, and Dean couldn’t tell if it was from shock or if he was actually unwell. Even the pink flush of his lips looked pale. 

“Cas?” Dean started forward, worried. Somehow, with the sudden concern for Cas’s health, he managed to forget to be surprised to see Cas standing there in front of his house as if the fifteen years between Cas leaving and Cas showing up hadn’t happened.

“Dean?” Cas sounded like he’d swallowed a frog, faint and breathless and croaking deeper than even _he_ should sound. “Is that…?”

Dean moved faster, and, just as he reached out to pull Cas close, the realization of how incredible, how _shocking_ it was to have Cas standing there in front of him nailed him in the solar plexus. He wrapped his arms around Cas’s shoulders, shivering when he realized how broad those shoulders had become. Cas had lost his half-grown puppy gangliness and filled out into a man. Dean nosed into the always-messy, dark hair behind Cas’s ear and inhaled deeply, hoping Cas smelled the same. He couldn’t tell; too many years apart had dulled his memory.

“Yes, Dean. It is I.” 

Cas stood there being hugged, not pulling away, but not hugging back, and Dean suddenly realized how awkward the whole thing was about to become. He loosened his grip, ready to step away and invite Cas in for a drink like a normal person, when both of Cas’s arms came up, locking around Dean’s ribs and squeezing. Dean resettled his arms more securely around Cas’s shoulders, pressed his face against the side of Cas’s neck, and just held on.

“Dean?” Cas’s voice came out muffled from deep inside the hug. Dean held on harder, and Cas squeezed back just as tightly.

“Yeah, Cas?” 

Cas didn’t answer, though. Maybe he, like Dean, just needed to keep repeating the name of the person he held. Like a magic word or mantra. Proof that the hug was real. That the person was real. That they were there, in that place and time together, like the last fifteen years had been a dream from which they were both just waking up.

“Come in and have a beer.” Dean could feel the prickle of Cas’s whiskers against his lips, and he nuzzled in, letting the drag of them hurt the thin skin around his mouth. Cas had grown a scratchy shadow halfway through their junior year, and it appeared he could still work the scruff. Dean had never been brave enough to admit he had always wanted to press his mouth to Cas’s jaw, his throat, his neck. Let the prickle burn his face raw. “Have supper with me.”

_Stay with me. Don’t ever leave me again._

Dean slid his hands down Cas’s back, work calluses snagging on the fuzz of his sweater, palms rippling and dipping with the muscles of Cas’s back. _God_ , he felt good under Dean’s hands. Smelled good, too. Musk and soap and bright cologne, and Dean inhaled again to get the scent of him deep into his lungs.

And then time stopped, and Dean’s heart stopped and he wanted to throw up. Cas was married, to a _woman_ , and yet Dean was practically humping the guy. Nearly _necking_ with him. He jerked away sharply, reaching up to run a hand through his hair.

“Shit, Cas, I…” He didn’t know where he was even _trying_ to go with his apology, so he dropped it and returned to less fraught subject. “Come in. I haven’t had supper yet. Join me.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Cas had his head tilted, squinting at Dean like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “Your family…”

“Just me,” Dean answered easily. He went back to collect his tools, pulling the headlamp off. “Dad’s gone now, Sammy’s in California finishing up law school. So it’s...it’s just me. Come on in. Save me from dining alone for once.”

He risked a glance back at Cas just in time to see Cas’s face split into a wide, gummy smile, and his heart clenched and relaxed again. The familiarity of that look and the ache from lacking it tangled up in Dean’s throat, and he found himself laughing in delight, tears stinging his eyes.

“It’s so, so good to see you, Cas.” He led the way into the garage. He focused carefully on filling the pegs and bins where he’d organized his at-home tools with everything he'd taken out to use that evening. “You can’t even know, man.”

“It is likewise good to see you, Dean.” Cas stepped in too close, same as always, to watch Dean work. “And I _do_ know, I assure you.”

“That’s...that’s good.” Dean got caught by Cas’s eyes again, just for a moment, and then he shook himself free enough to lead the way into the kitchen. 

“Stuff is _starting_ to get moved to new places,” he told Cas, “but you can probably still find your way around. Make yourself at home. I’m gonna run upstairs for a quick shower, and then we’ll figure out what to eat. Not sure there’s a damn thing in the fridge, so we’ll probably just order delivery.”

“Anything is fine, Dean.” Cas stood awkwardly in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, looking around with hungry eyes. “Take your time.”

Dean started up the stairs, stopped, and looked back at Cas who still stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Dean instead of staring around the room. His jaw, always sharp, had lost all traces of baby fat, and his neck had thickened with muscle. His shoulders were broad and sloping under the blue of his sweater. His dark hair still looked like he’d combed it with an egg-beater (as Chuck used to say), and he still looked like he’d never learned to shave properly. Dean pulled his eyes away and started up the steps before he did something stupid.

Like inform Cas that, by seeing him again, Dean finally understood why he’d never found anyone he really wanted to spend his life with: there wasn’t another Castiel James Novak in all the world. He didn’t want the chase and the playing and the insincerity of dating. He wasn’t looking to get his world rocked every time he climbed beneath the sheets. All he really wanted was someone to come home to. Someone to talk to. Someone to stand too close and hug too hard, reminding him that not everything in life was exhaustion and loneliness. Dean dragged himself up to the shower, hating the necessity of jerking off like mad under the spray of hot water, but knowing that he’d never be able to get near Cas without the release. 

Figured that Dean would discover, fifteen years and twelve hundred miles too late, that he’d always been in love with his best friend.

*****

Cas wasn’t in the living room when Dean came out of the bathroom dressed in a pair of soft sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt. Dean started to panic, wondering if Cas had heard him through the door of the bathroom, breathing too hard and whispering Cas’s name like a prayer and a plea and a promise at once. He hoped he hadn’t actually said Cas’s name _aloud_ at the end, when he’d risen up on his toes and then nearly collapsed from the force of his orgasm. 

Dean shook off thoughts of that; he’d been keeping company with his hand for enough years that he _knew_ how to stay silent, dammit.

The kitchen was also devoid of Cas, but a small square of notepaper lay in the center of the table, covered with Cas’s so-familiar, spiky, chicken-scratch handwriting. Dean forced himself not to kiss the ink by sheer effort of will. 

But _God_ , he’d missed Cas so badly.

_Dean, Gone to pick up my car from down the street. I will drive it to get some supper for the both of us. I’m going to assume your gastronomic preferences have not changed, but, if a bacon cheeseburger does not sound good, please call me at the below number to let me know. Yours most sincerely, Castiel Novak_

Dean read through the note twice and then started laughing. Whatever else had changed, Cas still wrote like someone had wedged a stick firmly up his ass. Dean laughed until tears ran down his cheeks, and then he flopped into a kitchen chair, folded his arms on the table, buried his face in his arms, and cried until the doorbell rang. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and hurried to open the door. 

“Hello, Dean.” Cas stood on the front porch, a bulging bag from Biggerson’s in one hand and a cardboard double drink carrier in the other. “Are you not feeling well?”

Dean took a deep breath and reached out to take the bag from Cas’s hand. He smiled crookedly, and Cas smiled back, without really changing expression. His eyes crinkled, just the slightest bit at the corners, and the familiarity of the look punched Dean right in the gut. 

“Not really,” Dean told him. He’d never lied to Cas about anything (except that one little lie of omission), and he wasn’t about to start when he’d just barely gotten Cas back. “But I’m better since you got here.”

Without waiting for Dean to invite him in, Cas pushed past him into the house, patting Dean’s shoulder on the way by.

“I feel just the same way,” he said, heading to the kitchen with the drinks. Dean hurried after him. “Now let’s eat, and you can tell me all about it.”

Figured. Fifteen years after Cas had waved to Anna when Dean backed out to drive him to the airport, fifteen years after he’d hugged Sam goodbye on the front porch, _fifteen years_ after he’d kissed Dean’s cheek at the airport and headed toward his plane without another word. Just like that, Cas was back, and he just slotted himself into place as if he’d never been away.

Dean silently mouthed the same old prayer of thanks for Cas as he got out napkins. Decade and a half apart, and the guy was still his guardian angel.

*****

By the time midnight rolled around, Dean’s fridge was devoid of beer, and Dean himself was mostly devoid of words. He hadn’t known he _could_ talk that much. He’d just cracked open and spilled out under Cas’s serious eyes and inquisitive head tilt. All his loneliness and exhaustion. His worries over Sam and his past addiction; Dean’s fear that _that_ was all his fault. He poured out his dating woes; how he couldn’t put any kind of effort into a long-term sort of thing, and he didn’t know if that came from actually being so busy with work and the house or if it stemmed from his inability to commit. Everything he’d held inside, not saying to _anyone_ else, rattled out with terrifying ease to the best friend of his childhood.

Cas didn’t say much; he just rumbled understanding kinds of sounds and occasionally reached over to pat Dean on the shoulder, the arm, and once– stealing Dean’s breath away– his thigh. After several hours of confession and comfortable silences interspersed with blank staring into each other’s eyes, they sat side by side in the center of the couch, shoulders, arms, and thighs pressed together. Cas’s head started to bobble a bit, as if he wanted to fall asleep.

“You’re not driving back to…” Dean squeezed Cas’s knee, then forced himself to move his hand back onto his own leg. “Where’re you staying?”

“You’re right. I’m too drunk to drive anywhere.” Cas stood up and stretched, and Dean _absolutely did not_ stare at the flex of his ass under those navy slacks. “I’ll call an Uber.”

“You could...you could just stay here.”

Cas turned around and looked down at Dean, a soft smile curling his plump lips. He reached out carefully to smooth his hand over the top of Dean’s head, petting him, apparently just as tactile a drunk as he’d been as a teenager. He cupped the side of Dean’s face for a moment before pulling his hand away slowly, his smile going smaller but somehow warmer.

“No, Dean.” Cas looked down, his dark lashes fanning across his cheeks for a moment before he looked back up at Dean’s face, eyes blazing with an emotion Dean couldn’t read. When had _that_ happened, Cas learning expressions Dean couldn’t read as clearly as a words on a page? “I really, really can’t. But call me tomorrow, and we’ll make plans to...to get together. Again. A lot before I leave, I hope.”

“How long are you in town for?” Dean got up and followed Cas to the kitchen, collecting empty beer bottles and open bags of snacks on his way. 

“As long as I need to be.” Cas pulled out his phone, typed something into an app, and then smiled up at Dean, eyes crinkling and gums showing. “At least I know the address of my current location.”

They stood there by the sink awkwardly staring at each other. Dean was afraid to say anything for fear of suddenly saying the wrong thing, wondering what he’d said to make Cas so determined to leave in the first place. It might have been minutes or maybe an entire hour before Cas finally just sighed and turned away to get himself a glass of water. He’d just emptied it when his phone beeped, and he pulled it out of his pocket, holding it up to show Dean. 

“My ride’s here.”

“I’ll call you.” Dean told him, moving in for another hug. He slid his arms around Cas’s waist and let Cas’s strong arms surround his neck and face. “Tomorrow. Soon’s I get a break at the shop.”

Cas nodded, kissed Dean’s cheek, and left so quickly he seemed to simply vanish.

Dean was _sure_ he’d never get to sleep that night, no matter how much beer he had sloshing around in his belly. Every nerve was still alight from being so close to Cas, from being hugged and held and even _kissed_ by Cas. So what if it was just on the cheek; Cas’s lips had touched Dean’s skin. And Dean really needed to stop thinking about that, or he was going to cross the line to seriously creepy. He’d managed to keep himself from thinking about much of anything when he’d touched himself in the shower. If deep blue eyes flashed through his mind, he managed to divorce the idea of those eyes, the way they’d been in high school, from the man that Dean had _thought_ was waiting downstairs. 

He told himself that it was different, thinking of someone that didn’t, technically, really exist anymore than it was to think of someone that was a _friend_. Still, he didn’t want to repeat the experiment, not with his cheek still tingling from the rasp of Cas’s stubble against his own cheek.

Flopping side to side, Dean tried to get comfortable. His pillows were too flat, his bedding was too lumpy, and his skin was ready to crack and peel away. Dean was starting to worry. How the _hell_ was he supposed to get through a work day without any sleep? If he didn’t at least get his usual four hours, he’d be too clumsy, too cranky, and too...too…

He caught a whiff of Cas’s cologne on his t-shirt, and one knot of tension in his chest unlocked and fell away. Deciding it was the lesser of two evils, Dean reached inside his boxers and wrapped his fingers around himself. Just a quick tug to get it out of his system, and then he’d at least be rested enough to survive at the shop the next day.

He hoped.

*****

Dean didn’t really have time for lunch, but he walked to a deli down the street for a sandwich anyway, deciding that a break was more important than finishing the oil change he’d gotten stuck with when they’d been splitting up the workload that morning. He carefully didn’t take out his phone until he had finished the sandwich on his walk back, throwing the wrapper away in the waiting room trash and shifting his coffee to his left hand to leave his right thumb free to dial.

“Hey, Cas!” Dean glanced around to see if anyone had noticed the extra enthusiasm that had slipped out as soon as Cas’s gruff voice came over the line. “How’s it hanging?”

“It’s hanging just fine, Dean, thank you for asking.” 

Dean covered his mouth with the wrist of his coffee-laden hand to stifle his laughter, pressing the phone closer to his ear with the other. 

“And how is yours hanging?”

“Fine, Cas.” Dean was half-convinced that Cas was serious until Cas let out a bark of a laugh.

“Hasn’t fallen off yet, you mean?” 

Dean ducked into his office and closed the door before dropping into his desk chair.

“Haven’t been getting enough action for that, man.” His brain screamed at him, wondering just what the _hell_ he thought he was doing, discussing sex with Cas. It was far too close to _very_ dangerous territory. “Shit, I haven’t gotten laid in…” He trailed off, trying to think how long it’d been. “Last time was a guy I went out with a few times last summer, I think.”

A long, dead-silent pause followed, and Dean realized that he’d just come out to the person who probably should have known first, if Dean hadn’t been such a chickenshit back in high school. He held his breath, waiting for Cas to flip out on him, waiting for Cas to become offended and stiff.

“Lucky guy,” Cas murmured softly, barely on the edge of Dean’s hearing. He cleared his throat, the sound a coarse bark across the line, and then continued in a louder, firmer voice. “Since if you’re not currently involved with anyone, may I assume you’re free for supper?”

Dean let out his breath in an explosively relieved sigh. “Yeah, man. That sounds great. We close up the shop at six tonight, so why don’t you come this way and get the grand tour.”

“Yes.” Dean could hear the smile in Cas’s voice. “I would like that very much.”

Dean started to give directions to the shop, but Cas cut him off, assuring him that Winchester Automotive Repairs and Restoration wouldn’t be too difficult to type into his GPS. They sat on the phone in silence for another minute, and Dean wondered when it would get awkward or uncomfortable. 

It didn’t.

“I’ll see you in five hours.” Cas said, perhaps a little rougher in tone than usual. “Do you want to go home to change so we can go out, or would you prefer to get carryout and spend the evening in?”

Dean considered. On the one hand, going out would guarantee that he wouldn’t do anything so stupid as plaster himself against his _married_ once-best friend’s side again. On the other, it might fuck with his head enough to feel like a date: going home, getting cleaned up, going out with a hot guy…. Bad idea. Then again, staying in would leave him behind closed doors with _Cas_ , who was clearly still Dean’s idea of a walking wet-dream. They’d sit on the couch, watch a movie or something, and Dean would spend all evening being _very_ aware of every little move Cas made.

Maybe Dean should just give it up as a bad deal and cancel so he could go home and wallow in his pathetic crush-that-wouldn’t-die in peace. 

“Dean?” Cas asked, soft and tentative, like he knew that Dean was about to skip out on him. “You don’t have to decide right now. Show me the shop first, and then we’ll see how we’re feeling.”

“Okay.” It came out a croak, and Dean cleared his throat. “Okay, Cas. I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Yes, Dean.” Cas’s voice curled into a smile that Dean closed his eyes to imagine. “You will.”

Being distracted by thoughts of Cas and the dilemma about how to spend the evening made working difficult– dangerous, too. Dean was so distracted that he scraped the back of his hand while throwing a piece of trash in the can under his desk. He caught the tip of his finger on the sharp edge of a screw under that got wedged in the corner of a drawer in his tool chest. And then, and he would never figure out how, he caught the edge of his cheekbone with a tool as he reached into the engine of a particularly ancient Beatle. There was a small barb of metal on the end of the wrench, and it gouged deeply, leaving Dean with blood trickling down the side of his face and dripping onto the neck of the t-shirt he wore beneath his coveralls.

“Where’s your head, dude?” Ash asked as he carefully patted tiny bits of tape over the gash in Dean’s face. He was Dean’s computer guru, highly skilled and handled carefully to keep around; Ash knew how to fix anything that happened with any of the computer systems of any car since computers had been added. “I know you’ve been stressed with us being all short-handed, but you’re just kinda floating along with your head in the clouds. You find yourself a new lover finally?”

“What?! No!” Dean jerked back so hard that Ash was left holding a tangled patch of bandage tape in his silicone-gloved fingers. 

“Now I’m going to have to start over.” Ash shook his head, setting his massively out-dated but impressively maintained mullet to swinging around his shoulders. “You just keep staring off into space and smiling is the thing. You’re never this clumsy around the garage. So come on, man, dish. You have a new little something going on, and I, for one, want to hear all about it.”

“Oh!” Garth stuck his head into the office, his thin face alight with interest and his oversized eyes warm and liquid. “Did I hear you say Dean’s got a new innamorata?”

“I don’t!” Dean slapped Ash’s hands away from his face and grabbed the first aid kit; he’d patch himself up in the mirror in the bathroom where at least he could keep a locked door between himself and his nosy mechanics.

“Oh, he’s got it bad, and she doesn’t know he’s alive.” Garth patted Dean’s shoulder as he pushed his way out of the office. “It’s okay, man. You’ll woo her soon enough.”

“There’s no she! There’s no having anything! There’s no _wooing_!” Dean slammed the door of the bathroom behind himself, flipping the lock and throwing the first aid box across the tiny room. 

There was no anyone. Wouldn’t be. _Couldn’t_ be. Not ever. Because Cas had come back, and Cas was still perfect, and Cas was still _married to a woman_. Dean turned on the faucet and scooped a double handful of cold water over his face. It stung the cut on his cheek and cooled the burning of his eyes. He kept his eyes closed, clinging to the edge of the sink to keep himself upright. Guiltily, he wished Cas was there so he could sink into Cas’s hug and just...just tell him how badly everything sucked right then. 

And then Cas would announce that he was leaving his wife and he’d always been in love with Dean and that they could take advantage of the Supreme Court’s decision and get married and adopt some siblings for Claire and live happily ever after. 

And then pigs would fly right outta Dean’s ass and sprinkle unicorn-shaped confetti around the shop.

A sharp knock on the bathroom door dragged him out of his miserable stupor.

“Piss off, guys,” he grouched, leaning harder against the sink and letting his head hang limply from his neck. “I’m not in the mood for it.”

“I'm afraid pissing of any kind would be ill-advised while you're bogarting the bathroom, Dean.”

Cas’s gruff voice was the last thing Dean expected to hear. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and saw it was just three minutes until six.

“Dean, your...associates seem to be worried about you.” Cas knocked on the door again, softer this time. “Please let me in.”

Dean hovered halfway across the floor, torn between yanking open the door and throwing himself into Cas’s arms or _never_ coming out. Especially since he’d developed some kind of boner-of-humiliation while he’d been thinking about Cas making some wild proposal. He took a long, slow breath and reminded himself to act like a human. He wiped his palms on his jeans and then stepped over to unlock the door and backed away. The doorknob clicked open, and Cas came in. He stopped short when he saw Dean’s face, shook his head, and set about picking up the scattered first aid supplies.

“It’s a good thing these are all sealed, Dean.” Cas scowled as he carried the plastic bin to the sink and turned Dean toward the light, leaning his own butt back on the counter. “I’m certain the bathroom floor is not the most sanitary place to keep them.”

He turned around to wash his hands, nearly shoving his ass into Dean’s crotch as he bent to rinse his wrists. Dean’s shame-boner twitched in his jeans, and he backed away. Cas glared at him in the mirror.

“Stay right there, Dean,” he growled, and Dean felt himself filling up even _more_ in his jeans. “I’m going to doctor your face, and then you’re going to tell me what’s wrong with you.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me, C–”

“Shut up, Dean.” Cas’s eyes went flat in his death-stare of frustration.

There was no arguing with that voice or that look, as Dean remembered from a lifetime of having both of them aimed his direction. He pressed his lips together and glared back at Cas. Cas sighed, nostrils pinched in frustration, and Dean’s grouchiness faded away.

“So we’re playing doctor now?” Dean asked, quirking a smile. Cas gave him a look, trying to be angry and unimpressed, but the corners of his mouth tightened, and his eyes crinkled up, sparkles showing in their blue depths.

Neither of them spoke through the subsequent cleaning, ointment application, and bandaging of Dean’s face. Cas’s hands were steady as he carefully pulled the edges of the skin together and ran tape over the wound. His breath– minty fresh, like he’d just brushed his teeth– puffed warm against Dean’s cheek, the shell of his ear, and Dean closed his eyes and concentrated on not shivering. 

“All done.” 

Dean opened his eyes just in time to see Cas’s face getting closer. He nearly panicked, but then Cas got close enough to touch his full lips to the tape on Dean’s face, and Dean couldn’t resist pushing into the kiss. Just a little. Hopefully not enough to be noticed. 

Too late, Dean remembered that Cas noticed everything.

Cas pulled back quickly, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Got ointment on me,” he muttered gruffly as he turned around and began repacking the first aid kit. “Now. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Dean tried to say it blankly, matter-of-fact, but he could hear the whine in his voice, and he kinda hated himself for it. 

Cas closed the case and turned back to Dean, head tilted and eyes squinted, curious and too observant. Dean’s breath hitched when Cas gathered him in, arms solid and heavy around his back, the scent of him filling Dean’s senses. They stood in silence for three heartbeats, and then Dean sighed and tucked his face into Cas’s shoulder.

“I’m just...I just...I don’t know.”

“Ah. It’s like that,” Cas said, rubbing one hand between Dean’s shoulder blades. “How about we eat in tonight? We can watch a movie.”

“Can...Could you stay over?” Dean felt like he was back in fourth grade again, but with the hormones of his teenage self coursing through his veins. He forced himself not to pull Cas closer, not to run his hands down the muscles of Cas’s back, not to _enjoy_ the firmness of Cas’s body against his own. He focused on the comfort of his best friend from childhood and pushed away his raging crush. _Just loneliness. Nothing to get too frisky over,_ he told himself.

“I don’t–” Cas began, and Dean took a half step back, cutting him off.

“It’s just...Ellen is having a family dinner at The Roadhouse tomorrow.” Dean carefully rested his palms on Cas’s ribs, trying to find the balance between a friendly hug and clinging to stay upright. “She and Bobby and Jo and Ash and _everybody_ would love it if you’d go.”

There was a long, silent pause, and Dean did _not_ hold his breath.

“I would have to borrow something to sleep in.” The corner of Cas’s mouth crooked up in something almost a smile. “And something to wear tomorrow.”

Dean huffed a small laugh and pulled Cas in tighter again. They’d been borrowing clothing back and forth since they were children. Nothing new. Nothing difficult about it.

“Of course, Cas.” Dean pulled away at last and checked the bandage on his cheek in the mirror. “And good job on my face.”

“It’s a lovely face,” Cas said, all serious scowl, eyeing the tape dubiously. Dean realized with a start that he could see the playfulness behind his gruffness. “It’d be a pity to scar it up any more than necessary.”

*****

Dean had Cas pull his rental into an empty garage bay for the night; they’d pick it up on the way back from The Roadhouse the next day. Cas climbed into the front seat of the Impala and ran his palm over the dash reverently.

“She looks magnificent, Dean.” Cas patted the leather seat and fiddled with the seatbelt as he pulled it across his chest. “As always.”

“Of course.” Dean snorted, still not entirely over his mood from earlier, despite Cas’s enthusiastic reaction to the garage and the shock of Dean’s employees in response to Cas’s courtly manners. “What? You think I’d let her rust out or something?”

“You did not eat lunch,” Cas’s non sequitur made Dean flinch, and he turned to find Cas staring at him with a reproachful look.

“I did. But...it was just a sandwich. Not enough.” Dean clenched his jaw, and turned to watch the road as he pulled out of the drive. “What makes you think that, anyway?”

“Because you’re being a grouchy ass.” Cas sounded smug, and Dean glanced over to see him settled back in the seat, arms folded over his chest, eyes closed, chin jutting under a smirk. “You always forget how much of an ass you are when you don’t eat. And then you spread the shit around with a large pitchfork.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond and then clicked his teeth together hard when he found he had nothing to say.

“Let’s go to the store, Dean.” Cas opened one eye and grinned at him. “I’ll cook for you tonight. _You’ll_ pick out a snack to keep you from killing anyone before supper’s ready.”

Cas never could cook worth a damn. Still, it was pleasantly familiar to sit at the table and watch him scowl at the instructions on the box of Hamburger Helper while he scorched the beef and boiled the pan over a couple of times. Dean propped his cheek on his hand and munched handfuls of grapes while Cas managed to put out the pilot light on the burner twice. 

“Need a hand?” Dean grabbed a couple of blueberries and popped them in his mouth while Cas turned the burner off and then back to ignite.

“Yes.” Cas glared over his shoulder. “Another pair of elbows in the way will certainly make supper preparation go more smoothly.”

Dean laughed and rolled to his feet. He stepped up behind Cas, reaching out to grip the spoon around Cas’s fingers. 

“If you go like this–” he demonstrated scraping the bottom of the pan with the flat edge of the scoop– “instead of just stirring the top of the sauce, it’ll blend better and avoid sticking to the bottom of the pan.”

Cas relaxed his arm, letting Dean move their joined hands. He leaned back against Dean’s chest and sighed. Dean cleared his throat, his free hand flitting from Cas’s shoulder to his bicep to his hip.

“Perhaps we should have gone with a frozen pizza.” Cas tilted his head back, leaning it on Dean’s shoulder. The flex of his jaw as he spoke scratched his whiskers against Dean’s cheek. “Even I can’t screw up preheat and set a timer.”

They stood there, pressed too tightly together until Dean felt the silence rise up and claw at him. Quiet had never felt so unnatural, so _charged_ between them, but Cas had never rested against him quite that way before, trusting Dean’s strength to hold him, fitting them so tightly together. Dean squeezed Cas’s hip once and then carefully stepped away. If he didn’t get some space, some kind of distraction, he’d start having _reactions_ to Cas, and that would be _way_ out of line.

“Nah, man.” Dean grabbed a beer from the fridge and twisted the top off. He took a long pull at the bottle before he pulled out a second one for Cas. “This is way better. I get dinner _and_ a show.”

Cas turned around and flung a noodle, and they both laughed. And just like that, acting like children and laughing together, everything felt normal again. _Familiar_ again.

“How do you even feed yourself?” Dean asked as they settled onto the couch with bowls of overcooked beef and undercooked noodles. He dug in without hesitation; it wasn’t the worst meal he’d ever eaten, by a mile. John, when he was only half-lit by supper time would try to fix food for both boys and–

Dean derailed that train of thought sharply and bumped his shoulder into Cas’s, smiling around a mouthful.

“Thanks, man,” he mumbled after he swallowed. Cas smiled at him, eyes crinkling playfully.

“Don’t thank me until we survive the ordeal.” He bumped his own shoulder back into Dean’s. “I mean, I haven’t killed anyone _yet_ with my cooking, but it’s never too late to start.”

Dean snorted and picked up the remote, scrolling through the options until Cas told him to stop on a movie they’d watched together in high school. They watched a couple of dumb old movies on Netflix, talking about nothing, and then Dean showed Cas to his own old bedroom. He got a toothbrush out from under the master bathroom sink, cringing when he saw the possibly expired, still unopened box of condoms also stored in the cabinet. As if Dean needed any more proof that he was pathetic. Cas busied himself with his oral hygiene while Dean hunted up some flannel sleep pants for him. 

Cas took the pants with a half-smile, eyes bright and unreadable, and Dean shut the door of his own bedroom a little too slowly as Cas turned to walk down the hall. Hot food, some laughter, and a couple of beers had washed away the last of Dean’s funk, and, in spite of the uncomfortable fluttering in his gut when he remembered the way they’d leaned together while cooking, he found himself smiling as he relaxed into his pillows and drifted off to sleep.

*****

The next morning, Dean woke up feeling better than he had in months, lighter, better rested. He bounced to his feet and dressed, humming a little Three Dog Night to himself as he pulled on clothing and brushed his teeth. He burst into song just before stepping out of his room.

_And if I were the king of the world  
Tell you what I’d do  
I’d throw away the cars and the bars and the war  
Make sweet love to you…_

Cas met Dean in the hallway, grinning ear to ear and joining in (out of tune) on the chorus: 

_Sing it now, joy to the world  
All the boys and girls  
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea  
Joy to you and me_

Dean cooked breakfast while Cas washed the dishes from the night before. 

“Oh look,” Dean teased, rolling the last of the sausages onto his own plate, “a kitchen task even you can’t screw up.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Cas murmured, taking the pan from Dean’s hand and sliding it into the sink. Dean laughed, pulling silverware out of a drawer and tucking in his shirt pocket to take to the table while Cas finished rinsing out the cast iron and dried it carefully. 

“At least I remember your mother’s orders to never let soap touch her skillets.” Cas twirled the pan between his hands and set it carefully on the counter. “Imagine how hopeless I’d be if she’d never been around.”

Dean froze, both plates extended toward the table. His vision had gone suddenly fuzzy, and he blinked hard a couple of times and cleared his throat before he managed to get their breakfasts safely on the butcher block surface. 

“Same here,” he whispered, taking the forks and knives out of his pocket. Cas collected a couple of paper towels to use as napkins and sat down across from him.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t mean to–”

“No.” Dean interrupted him, reaching out to squeeze his wrist. “No one’s mentioned her in...in way too long.” He smiled as best he could, sure it was crooked and tipping a little toward sadness. “I’m glad you brought her up.”

He meant it, too. It was hard sometimes, thinking of his mother so often and never hearing her name or her charms spoken aloud.

“I still miss her,” Cas admitted, watching his own fingers fidget with the paper towels on the tabletop. “And I only had her for such a short time. Must be even harder for you, having had her for nine whole years. Sometimes…”

He trailed off and shook his head, looking up at Dean with a sad smile of his own. Dean squeezed his wrist again. Sometimes Dean wondered, too. What it would have been like if they’d had Mary just a little bit longer. Or a lot longer. If he’d had his mother to talk to about all the confusing feelings and attractions of his youth. If Mary had been there to have pointed out how stupid Dean had been when Cas moved away. If Mary had been there when Cas returned just as Dean needed him most. 

“Let’s eat,” Dean said gruffly, grabbing one of the papery sheets out of Cas’s hand and sitting back to tuck in.

Conversation was secondary to eating, and they both just smiled tiredly around mouthfuls of scrambled eggs or sausage or pancakes from time to time. Cas got up once to refill their coffee mugs, and Dean only remembered that he’d bought orange juice when they were nearly finished. He poured small glasses for both of them and sat back down.

“So you can borrow something of mine to wear today or–” he took a tight grip on his courage. “Or we could go by your hotel so you could change. And then.” He cleared his throat and looked away from Cas’s sharp gaze. “And then you could bring it all along and just stay here the rest of the time you’re in town.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude–” Cas began, but Dean cut him off.

“You couldn’t if you tried.” He pushed his chair back and scratched the back of his neck. “Seriously, Cas. The place is too big to be in by myself. It’d be great to have someone else filling it up a little bit. Give us time to catch up, ya know?”

Cas sat, silent and still, and Dean suddenly remembered that he’d always been that way when he didn’t know the right answer to a question, like he was trying to be invisible. 

“There’s no wrong choice here,” Dean said carefully. “If you...if you’d prefer the privacy and...and–” 

Much to his relief, Cas cut him off.

“Yes.” Cas looked up and nodded decisively. “That would...that would be great. Thank you, Dean. For...for inviting me.”

Dean felt himself smile, wondering when the last time he’d smiled without having to remind himself to do so, and Cas’s wide, gummy grin beamed back at him.

“Awesome, man.” Dean got up and picked up both plates to add to the dishwasher. “Extended sleepover. Just like old times.”

Shortly after breakfast was cleaned up, showered and dressed for the day, Dean drove to the hotel where he helped Cas repack all of his things and carry them out to the Impala. He also futzed around on the hotel’s cable television while Cas shut himself in the bedroom to change clothes. He absolutely did _not_ get stuck staring blankly at HGTV while thinking of Cas naked on the other side of the door. Absolutely not...for more than five minutes. Ten at the outside.

From the hotel, they went straight to The Roadhouse for family dinner. The group that gathered, about once a month, to eat together, to celebrate holidays and birthdays and occasionally just one another were, by and large, not related. Ellen’s daughter, Jo, now a senior at Kansas University, would be there. So would Bobby, retired after selling his share of Winchester Mechanics to Dean for a song (he insisted he didn’t need the money, and he would have simply gifted it to Dean had it not been for taxes and the like). Also attending would be a couple of people from the garage– Ash and Garth were guaranteed, although the others were always invited. Rufus Turner, another hunting buddy of Bobby’s who also knew John, never missed a chance to eat pie or Dean’s burgers. And Benny Lafitte, another good friend of Dean’s who had been kicked out by his parents his senior year (when Dean was just a freshman), would bring his whole family– wife Andrea and three small children; he’d finally found someone who could run his hole-in-the-wall Creole restaurant on Saturday afternoons, giving him more time to spend with his family, blood and found. Dean’s other best friend, Charlie Bradbury, was _not_ going that weekend, since she and her girlfriend were busy LARPing.

Dean quite missed getting to don chainmail and go melee with Queen Charlie and her consort, Gilda the Faerie. 

Cas, who had not attended a family dinner since high school, nervously toyed with a thread from the inseam of his jeans while he sat in silence after Dean had killed the engine. He licked his lips, ran a hand over his hair, and squared his shoulders. Dean wanted to say something encouraging, but words had never been his strong suit, so he reached over and squeezed Cas’s knee, offered him a crooked smile, and climbed out of the car. Cas followed him across the gravel parking lot, looking up at the peeling paint of Harvell’s Roadhouse with a small, happy smile on his face.

Dean walked in first, wanting to see everyone’s reactions to the return of the prodigal son. The shock and joy on Ellen’s face when she saw Cas made warmth curl under Dean’s ribs. He’d brought Cas home, and it felt _good_ , having so much of his family under one roof. Ellen came around from behind the bar at a slow walk, but even Dean could see how she strained toward Cas, arms reaching out to pull him in. When she spoke, her voice was muffled by his neck.

“Boy, I don’t know why it took you so damn long to get back, but I’m damn glad to see you, son.” She stepped back, holding Cas by the biceps to look him over. “You’ve gotten taller. And you still haven’t learned how to shave, I see. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Handsome as ever.”

She released him to let him be hugged or hand-shaken by everyone else that had gotten there before Cas and Dean had.

“He’s just in town visiting,” Dean explained as Ellen turned on him. He accepted his own hug from Ellen, and then Jo came out of the kitchen to see what the hubbub was. 

Her scream of _Cas!_ carried over everyone else, and she elbowed people out of the way to throw her arms around him. She began talking a mile a minute at Cas, and he grinned silently, clearly soaking up the atmosphere, happiness shining in his eyes. Dean sighed, feeling another knot of tension he’d carried for a decade loosen in his belly.

“This isn’t exactly what I meant about bringing someone,” Ellen said softly to Dean, punching him in the arm. And then she slung her arm around his waist and hugged him to her side. “But I’ll forgive it on the grounds that your first love showed back up. Family not with him?”

“Nah, he said they were busy, so he took his chance to knock around his childhood home.” 

He’d have snapped at her about the _first love_ comment, but Dean couldn’t take his eyes off of Cas’s face, off the way his teeth shone in the brightest smile Dean’d seen on anyone in decades. Cas held out his hand to shake Bobby’s, but Bobby just folded him into a bearhug of epic proportions, and Dean thought his heart was going to burst. If Sammy suddenly walked in the door from California, life would have been absolutely perfect.

He glanced over at Ellen to find her watching Cas with a calculating look on her face. She caught Dean’s eye and turned on him sharply.

“Deano, drag Ash back into the kitchen and help him cook the burgers” She shook her head. “Boy’s going to burn the whole damn place down if he’s not supervised.”

Dean laughed because he figured he was supposed to, but he hated to leave Cas unchaperoned. It’d been years since Cas had been around the whole crowd, and the last time he’d been there, John Winchester had still been alive to act disapproving. That time, under the weight of John’s surly glare (brought on, no doubt, by Cas’s coming out the week before), Cas had clung close to Dean’s side. They’d spent most of the time on the steps beside the loading ramp in the back, smoking cigarettes snuck from the vending machine that used to live in the corner. 

“Scoot! Those burgers won’t cook themselves.” Ellen smacked Dean in the back of the shoulder and went back to get another hug from Cas. Dean turned reluctantly away and headed to the kitchen to Ash fix up a meal for the herd of their adopted family.

Later, much later, after the burgers all had been devoured, Cas slid into the booth next to Dean and leaned against his shoulder. His usually bright eyes were hazy, glassy from the booze everyone had offered that he’d been polite (and probably too thirsty) to turn down. His cheeks were flushed bright pink, and his hair stood out in a sexy tangle, the way he’d worn it back in high school. Dean wondered what had made Cas nervous enough to run his hands through his hair, over and over. Then again, if _Dean_ was back around this family for the first time in a decade or so, he’d probably be nervous, too. Dean tried not to tense up when Cas snuggled into his side, face pressed against Dean’s shoulder.

“Hello, Dean.” Cas rolled his head up to look at Dean’s face, and then hurriedly closed his eyes like the world had started to spin. “I believe I might have had too much whiskey. Seemed rude to tell Bobby no. Or Jo. Or Ellen. Ash. That guy from your shop. The skinny, earnest one.”

“That’s Garth.” Dean slung his arm around Cas’s shoulders, just to hold him up. 

“Yes.” Cas nodded soberly. “He’s very...tactile. I believe he’s hugged me more than even Ellen.” 

“Yeah,” Dean said, chuckling against Cas’s hair. “Yeah, that’s Garth, a’ight. How’s it feel, being back?”

Cas stiffened slightly, and Dean dug his thumb into a knot on the back of Cas’s neck. With a giant sigh, Cas went limp against Dean’s side again. “They all asked about...about my family. I’m not...I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

Dean felt something well up in his stomach, half dread, half hope, and all nauseated. 

“That’s okay, man.” He resisted the urge to kiss Cas’s temple and, instead, just squeezed a little harder with his one-armed hug, running his thumb up and down the side of Cas’s neck. “But, ya know, if you, like, ever wanted to talk about it, I’m here to listen.” He gave a weak chuckle. “Here to hear.”

Cas tried to squinch his face into a disapproving scowl, but a snort of laughter escaped and his lips twitched in a flicker of a smile. Dean grinned and chalked a point up to himself. Years apart, and he could still best friend with the best of ‘em.

“Thank you, Dean.” Cas straightened up again, and Dean let his arm slide down to rest across the back of the booth. “ But _I_ hear there is pie still to be eaten. Maybe it can help soak up the truly _alarming_ quantity of liquor that is currently sloshing around in my insides.”

He pushed himself up, wobbling slightly.

“Pie helps everything.” Dean slid out of the booth, too, resting his hand on Cas’s lower back to hold him up. “That is one thing I’m _damn_ sure about.”

“Of course you are.” Cas looked over his shoulder with a small, crooked smile that made Dean’s stomach flip and squirm. “Now let’s go eat some of it and then we’ll both feel better. I hope.”

The pie worked it’s magic on Dean, and it did seem like Cas perked up after a piece of pecan and another piece from the mixed berry. He might have been helped also by the coffee he started drinking. Cas managed not to stumble at all when he went to collect a dinner plate with two pieces of apple pie. He carried it back to the table where Dean sat, scowled when he found that Ash had stolen his chair, and nudged Dean’s shoulder a few times. Dean smiled at him and shifted. They ate the apple pie slices sharing a chair, just like they used to when they were significantly smaller– back to back, toes pushing down hard to hold them in the seat, spines stiff to brace them together from hips to shoulders. Dean remembered that they both used to be able to get a lot more ass on the seat when they were younger, and he hoped his leg wouldn’t start shaking and that his toes wouldn’t slip.

“Shots!” Jo came out from behind the bar carrying a tray. “Line ‘em up and drink ‘em down!”

A collective chaos of groans and cheers rose up from the assembled group, and Garth and Benny put down their cues and came back over from the pool tables to join the party.

“None for me.” Dean gave Jo a level look. “I’m driving.”

Jo opened her mouth like she was ready to argue with him.

“No.” Dean pushed his lips together and glared at her. His whole face felt stiff. “I. Am. Driving.”

She rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe him, and then shrugged and turned to Cas.

“Guess it’s two for you, big boy,” she said, putting a pair of shot glasses down in front of him. “Someone’s gonna have to deal with Dean’s.”

“Jo…” Dean wished she’d just shut the hell up. He didn’t want to have that argument. Again. Not in front of everyone. Not in front of Cas. _Especially_ in front of Cas. Shit. He was going to have to explain to Cas. Eventually. If Cas didn’t just up and leave. Again. “Just drop it.”

“Your loss, party pooper.” Jo flounced away to distribute shots to everyone else.

Cas reached back and patted the side of Dean’s thigh, and Dean absolutely did _not_ want to catch his hand and hold it against his leg for an hour. Soak up the warmth of Cas’s palm. He didn’t. Really. He just rested his fingers against Cas’s knuckles for a moment to...to show solidarity.

“I’m glad you’ll be sober enough to drive.” He flopped his head back on Dean’s shoulder and took his hand back to pick up the first of his shots. “Because I most _certainly_ am not.”

The drunken sincerity warmed Dean to his toes. He hadn’t always made sure he was sober to drive, and he sometimes got caught up in what-ifs. What if he’d ever hit someone? What if he’d wrapped his car around a pole when he’d had Cas with him, or, worse still, Sammy? What if he’d been the one to take the corner too fast on that icy night instead of John? What if what if what if. With Cas’s back warm against his own and Cas’s approval ringing in his heart, all the voices in Dean’s head grew quieter, drowned out by Cas’s simple _I’m glad._

They stayed at the bar all evening, long after it opened for the night. They shared nachos, Cas sobered up enough to play a few rounds of pool, and then they sat in a booth to one side and talked and joked together until late evening. Jo kept bringing shots around, two at a time, insisting Cas drink all of them that Dean wouldn’t...which was all of them. Dean nursed his third and final beer of the evening for the better part of an hour. It was bitter and warm when he finally finished the dregs and started to gather Cas up to get him home.

On the drive back to the house, Dean started to explain why he’d given up drinking. After John’s death, Dean nearly drank himself out of existence, and then he’d woken up one morning, feeling like Hell, and realized that he didn’t _want_ to be like John. Not in that way, and not really in many others, either.

“So like, I can’t drink if I got Baby with me.” He propped Cas against the wall long enough to turn around and lock the front door behind them. “Not after...m’ dad. It got him in the end. Was going to happen one way or another. He, ah, he was almost too weak to walk, but he decided to go out for more booze, three days after Christmas. Ice storm goin’, the works. And...well, he was none too sober when he started the truck. Lucky the old bastard only took himself out. Everyone else was smart enough to stay in that night, for the most part.”

“Dean, that’s…” Cas trailed off and tipped his head, closing one eye. “There are too many of you.”

“Wanna know the real kicker?” Dean shucked his jacket, hanging it on a peg on the coat rack by the door. He pulled Cas against his chest to work his jacket off of his shoulders. “The _real_ kicker is that the damn liquor store was closed, so even if he hadn’t taken out that light pole, he’d have been driving drunk _and_ pissed to get home and would’ve probably died then. Still, if it hadn’t been for the pole, his liver was gonna go real soon.”

“Almost too good for him to go out clean and fast.” Cas cupped the side of Dean’s face with a shaky hand, his booze-scented breath making the air around them heavy and thick. “My wife left me for another man, and she took our daughter on her honeymoon.”

“What the fuck?” Dean wrapped Cas into a tight hug, pulling his face into the side of Dean’s neck. “That...that fucking sucks. No wonder you didn’t wanna talk about it.”

“C’n I just stay here tonight?” Cas’s voice was muffled by Dean’s shoulder, and it was so familiar, the same tone of a childhood full of memories, than Dean laughed and hugged him harder.

“‘Course you can, man.” Dean leaned his lips against Cas’s hair, not kissing, exactly, but not exactly not-kissing, either. “We’d already decided that.”

Dean shunted Cas up the stairs and tried to push him into his own old room, the one Cas had slept in the night before, but Cas took one look at the full size bed and stopped dead.

“There is no way in hell we’re both going to fit in there anymore.” He scowled hard over his shoulder. “Your shoulders alone will take up too much room, and then we’ll both wake up with our backs out of place and you’ll bitch for hours about the crick in your neck.”

“Oh.” Dean felt his mouth go dry. He hadn’t _planned_ on having Cas in his own bed. The one he slept in. The one with the memory foam mattress that molded to his butt and his back. The one he’d never shared with anyone, not even one of the rather sparse one-night stands. “I...I sleep down here now. The, uh, the master bedroom.”

“Is the bed large enough for two?” Cas turned around, all serious eyes and intense staring.

“Yeah?” Dean was starting to get light-headed and he couldn’t tell if it was from the liquor fumes on Cas’s breath or from the sudden thought of having all six feet of gorgeous and apparently single in bed with him.

“You don’t sound certain.” Cas straightened up. Well, he tried to straighten up. Mostly he just ended up listing to one side with a very stiff spine. “Take me to this bed of yours and let me see for myself.”

“You’re still so weird when you’re drunk.” Dean laughed and pulled Cas back against his side– only to keep him from falling over on the way, of course– and guided him down the hall toward his grownup bedroom. 

“Shut up.” Cas leaned into Dean’s embrace and hummed happily. “You think I’m weird when I’m sober.”

“You’re not wrong there,” Dean agreed. He dropped Cas onto one side of the bed– the side that never saw more than paperwork– and started to rifle through his drawers for a couple pairs of pajama pants. “But your weird is still pretty great, so it’s cool.”

Cas hummed and then started to shuffle around on the bed. Dean nearly had a heart attack when he realized the shuffling came from Cas trying to wrestle himself out of his clothing.

“Oh, hey! Hang on, there!” Dean hurried around the bed and grabbed Cas’s hands, stilling them on the button-fly of his jeans. He immediately realized where that put his hands, and he let go with a yelp. “I’ll go...I’ll go change in the bathroom, and you can just...you can just get on with that...there.” 

Dean gestured toward Cas’s crotch, felt himself blushing and turned around quickly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dean.” The bed squeaked again and then Cas’s footsteps stumbled across the carpet in Dean’s general direction. “We’ve never had a problem changing together before. I don’t think it should start now.”

After closing his eyes and taking a long, deep breath, Dean turned around to try to explain to Cas why it wasn’t a good idea. 

Except that Cas was naked. 

To the skin. 

Completely without clothing. 

Not a scrap on him. 

Not anywhere. 

Not even on his dick. 

And Dean _really_ needed to stop staring at his dick. 

And it’s nudity. 

No, his chest wasn’t really much safer.

“Dean, are you feeling unwell?” Cas took another step closer to Dean, and Dean was too slow to back away. Cas’s hand cupped the side of his jaw, worry crinkling his brow as he studied Dean’s face. “You’re very,very flushed.”

“I”m fine, Cas.” Dean closed his eyes again and tried more deep breathing. “How about you finish getting ready for bed and get in. I, uh, I gotta piss.”

Flimsy excuse, but Dean needed to get away from Cas before he did something embarrassing. Something like drop to his knees to start sucking the guy without so much as asking first. It wasn’t until he was in the bathroom that Dean realized he’d left his own sleep pants on the floor. Beside the ones he’d gotten out for Cas. Oh, he hoped Cas had put on at least one pair of them. Hoped, hoped, hoped (and only a little bit hoped the opposite).

He splashed a handful of water over his face and grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste. He just needed to spend enough time that Cas could get in the bed and pass out– _under the covers_ – before Dean had to go back out into the bedroom.

“Dean?” Cas’s gruff voice from just outside the bathroom door startled him. “I need to brush my teeth.”

“Your toothbrush is in the front bathroom.” It was garbled around Dean’s toothbrush, so he took it out of his mouth and repeated himself, being careful not to spit anything on the floor.

“Oh yes. Thanks.”

There was a long silence during which Cas did not walk away from the bathroom door. 

“Cas?”

“Would you please point me in the direction of this _front bathroom_?” 

Dean could practically see Cas physically doing air quotes. As usual.

“I seem to have misplaced my feet.”

Dean groaned aloud and dropped his own toothbrush back in the cup, spit out his mouthful of foam, and opened the door. Since his pants were out of reach, he found himself extremely grateful for the invention of boxers. Boxers covered things. Like his own ass. And the half-chub he seemed to have developed along the way.

“–” 

He had no idea what to say. None. Cas had not only _not_ put on a pair of pants, he looked somehow as if he’d gotten _more_ naked in the two minutes since Dean had left him. His face was flushed, his bright blue eyes shining and glassy, and his hair stood out even _more_ around his face. He squinted at Dean, his expression crinkling into adorably confused. 

Seriously, guy needed to stop being cute. They were thirty damn years old, for fuck’s sake!

“Come on in, Cas.” Dean held his hand out, and Cas closed one eye and deliberately lifted his own hand to take hold of Dean’s. “I have another spare toothbrush in here you can use.”

“Dental hygiene is very important, Dean.” Cas opened both eyes and blinked owlishly. “So I appreciate your concern for the contents of my mouth.”

And no. Dean didn’t think of anything at all he could put in Cas’s mouth. Not a Single. Damn. Thing.

“Hurry up, man.” Dean balanced Cas against the edge of the counter and pulled out another new toothbrush from beneath the sink. He let Cas fumble with the tube of toothpaste for a moment and then reached out to take it from him, squeezing a dollop onto the bristles. “You need to get horizontal on a soft surface before you get horizontal on the floor.”

“Thank you, Dean.” Cas smiled at him, soft and crooked. “For...for...for just everything.”

Dean felt his face and ears heat, and he looked away. 

“Yeah, well, yeah...You’d have done the same for me, man.” Dean glanced back at Cas’s reflection, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Hell, you _have_ done the same for me.”

“I’m sorry.” Cas put the brush in his mouth and began to scrub it around with a lot of vigor and no coordination. “M mry fuh anging on oh luh.”

“What?”

Cas spit, rinsed his mouth out with a handful of water and spit again. 

“I’m sorry for being gone so long.” He turned into Dean’s space, still too naked and much too earnest. “I should have...I should have been here for you. So much more than I have been. I’ve...I’ve missed you, Dean. I thought...I thought you had a life here that didn’t need me. And I...I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Dean couldn’t think of an answer to that, so he didn’t say anything, but he did help Cas put the toothbrush in the cup with Dean’s own. He led Cas back into the bedroom and nudged him toward the bed. 

“You really gotta put some pants on, man.” Dean leaned down to pick both pairs up off the floor. He pulled the flannel plaid pants over his own legs and held out a pair of soft blue fleece toward Cas. “Come on. You’ll get cold.”

“I haven’t slept naked in...in far too long.” Cas climbed onto the bed, and Dean forced himself to look away before he got too close of a look at Cas’s muscular ass flexing as he crawled toward the pillows. “So you’ll have to excuse me, but I damned well do _not_ have to put on anything I don’t want. Now get over here and get in bed. I’m tired of sleeping alone, and I just want a friendly, warm person next to me. And you _said_ I could stay against your side. You said so.”

Dean thought back to the entryway, to Cas pressing in so hard against him, face tucked into Dean’s neck. He shivered, wondering what it would feel like to sleep with _that much_ naked Cas pressed all along his body. He edged under the covers on his own side of the bed and set an alarm for earlier than he really wanted to be up; Cas would need a hangover breakfast. They both settled in, not touching, once the lamp was out, and Dean tried very hard not to be aware of the warmth that spread from Cas’s side of the bed. He sighed heavily and then steadied his breathing to coax himself to sleep. Drowsiness came shockingly easy to him for a change.

“I hate my job.” Cas’s growly voice startled Dean back from the edge of sleep. “It’s soul-sucking, and it cost me my friends, my family, my home...everything.”

The anger and pain in his voice moved Dean’s body before his brain engaged. He rolled up behind Cas, not quite tucking in against his back, and looped one arm loosely over Cas’s side. Cas sighed gustily and leaned back into his chest. 

“I want to leave. The company. New York. All of it.” Cas sniffled. “Except...except there’s Claire. I don’t want to leave her. She’s...she’s amazing, Dean. Beautiful. Strong. Sarcastic. Sassy. You’d like her.”

“‘Course I would.” Dean forced the words around the lump building in his throat. “She’s yours, Cas. I love her already.”

Cas gave a soft hum and linked his fingers through Dean’s and tugged. Dean had never been able to deny Cas anything he actually asked for– he didn’t consider that this time he was also giving in to what he wanted for himself– so he scooted close, curving his body to fit tightly against Cas’s back, tucking his legs in and feeling the flex of Cas’s muscular (naked) ass in the cradle of his hips. 

“That’s why I came home, Dean.” Cas pulled Dean’s hand higher, cuddling it against his throat. “Because I...I wanted to find you. I needed you. I always needed you, but I was just too...too far up my own ass to see it. I missed you.”

Dean’s throat thickened until he couldn’t have said anything in response, even if he’d known what to say. He pressed his lips into the back of Cas’s neck and kissed him firmly. Cas sighed again, a happier sound, and they both fell asleep between breaths.

*****

Sunday morning dawned cold and blustery, winter not quite ready to cede its dominion to spring. After carefully easing out from under Cas’s limp body, Dean lay in bed as long as he could, watching Cas sleep beside him. He ran one finger along an untamed curl of Cas’s hair, keeping well away from Cas’s skin for fear of waking him. Finally, he rolled onto his back, scrubbing his hands over his face. 

_A friendly, warm person next to me_ , Cas had said. Dean sighed and wondered if Cas had known just how friendly Dean would have been willing to get, should Cas have been sober enough to consent. He snuck a peek from behind his palm at Cas’s soft, dreaming face and sighed again. Sex would have messed it all up, he was sure, ruining the growing warmth that lived in Dean’s chest in the once-hollow space labeled _My Best Friend, Castiel_.

Dean rolled back to his side and watched Cas sleep on.

Cas remained dead to the world long after Dean’s bladder dragged him out of bed. On the way back through his bedroom to grab a t-shirt, Dean stopped by the bed for just a moment to look. He’d woken lying on his stomach, Cas’s face smashed between his shoulder blades, one of Cas’s (still naked) legs thrown over both of Dean’s. It was the first night Dean could remember sleeping that hard, that dreamlessly in years. He brushed one finger along a curl of Cas’s shaggy hair again, and then he tucked the covers over Cas’s bare shoulder. All the bedding would have to be washed after Cas finished sweating out the booze he’d had the evening before, but Dean didn’t mind.

Small price to pay to help out a friend. And, well, if his married former best friend wasn’t quite so married, then… Dean tried not to think about it. He didn’t want to be Cas’s rebound. If he had Cas, he wanted it to be the real deal: nothing getting in the way ever again. Besides, Dean knew he could remove the word _former_ from the description of Cas as his best friend; at least, he could until Cas went back home. After that, it would be up to Cas to decide if they could hold onto what had regrown between them.

The smell of bacon finally lured Cas out of Dean’s bed and into the kitchen. At least, Dean assumed it was the bacon, since Cas stumbled more or less straight toward the stove, eyes closed. He bumped into Dean’s back, wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist, and heaved a giant, unpleasantly scented sigh.

“Hello, Dean.” 

Couldn’t the universe cut Dean a little slack? Did they have to be back to this...this...this _canoodling in the kitchen_ thing? 

Cas nosed in against the back of Dean’s neck and pushed in closer. Dean prayed that it was just the sharp edge of Cas’s hipbone against his ass and not an actual boner; he would lose his little remaining sanity if it was Cas’s dick and it was hard. At least Cas had taken the time to pick up and put on the sleep pants he’d refused to sleep in before coming downstairs.

“Hey, Cas.” Dean tried to wiggle free, but only succeeded in grinding against the hard ridge that he finally determined really was Cas’s dick. Maybe it was just a very solid, rather large banana. Cas made a soft sound and tossed his head, bedhead tickling the back of Dean’s ear. Dean shrugged him off and commanded, “Go sit at the table. Breakfast is almost ready.”

Dean didn’t whimper when Cas obeyed the order, but it was a near thing. It had just felt so _right_ , having Cas pressed up against him like that. He told his own traitorous dick to behave itself and carefully plated up the food. Cas’s eyes still weren’t entirely open when breakfast arrived in front of him, but Dean could see a sliver of blue past the dark fringe of his lashes.

“Dean.” Cas stopped, like he had no idea what he intended to follow up with. Then he set down his fork and got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. Dean waited patiently while he downed the first one black and then poured a second to doctor up with milk and sugar. Cas threw half of it down in one go and topped up the mug before shuffling back to the table. “I was naked when I awoke.”

“You were naked when you went to sleep.” Dean tapped Cas’s knuckles lightly with the tines of his fork. “Apparently you hadn’t done so in a long time, and you weren’t letting me or my sleep pants stand in the way of sleeping how you damned well pleased.”

“Oh.” Cas picked up a piece of bacon and crunched it moodily between his teeth. “So we didn’t…”

“What?!” Dean actually squeaked. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. Oh God, he was blushing. So was Cas. And Cas looked cute when he blushed. Lord, Dean needed to get a grip. “No! Of course not, Cas. That would be...that would be a bad idea, right?”

“Yes, of course it would.” Cas squinted at the far wall for a few minutes and then hummed thoughtfully. “You’re a good man, Dean Winchester.”

“Hardly that.” Dean kicked Cas’s ankle under the table. “But, dude, I’d never...take advantage of someone in that condition.”

“That’s not the only thing that makes you a good man, Dean.” Cas’s lips tipped up at the corner, and Dean felt his face heat.

They both chewed in silence for a few minutes, and Dean wondered if all the weirdness was only on his side. He chewed harder, trying to find something to get them back onto even footing. When he figured out what to say, he forgot to swallow before starting, nearly choking himself. He took a deep gulp of coffee and tried again.

“So–” Dean coughed again and took a second drink of his coffee. “So about your job.”

Cas clearly couldn’t answer with both cheeks puffed out by toast, so he raised both of his eyebrows.

“If you want, just while you’re here I mean.” Dean licked his lips and dragged his last sliver of bacon through the last of his egg yolk. “You could come work at the shop for me. I mean, one of my office people is going on maternity leave in just a few days, and one has been out sick a lot recently, and a mechanic retired and there’s just so much–”

“That sounds amenable,” Cas interrupted Dean’s verbal explosion, and Dean was so grateful he could have kissed the guy. “I could certainly do that for a couple of weeks. I mean, I don’t know a carburetor for a spark plug, but I do know something about accounting.”

“Please, man, you’re killing me.” Dean collected both plates and carried them to the sink before bringing the coffee pot back to the table to divide the dregs into both of their cups. “I taught you the basics myself, and you’re _way_ too smart to have actually forgotten it all. It’ll come back to you once you’re at the shop.”

‘We’ll see.” Cas smiled wryly and pushed himself up from the table. “Perhaps we can go get my things out of your trunk now? So I can shower and get dressed. I also need to make another call to the airport in Kansas City to see if they have somehow managed to get my luggage to the same basic geographic region as myself.”

“That why you’re toting around a bunch of bags from the Gap?” Dean started washing the dishes. “Keys are in a bowl in the entry. Help yourself to whatever you need from my shower.”

Cas squeezed his shoulder on the way toward the front door, and Dean gave a soft sigh of contentment. Now he had someone he actually trusted for the shop office, and someone to come home to (with) at night. He wondered if life might actually, really and truly, be looking up for him.

They spent the rest of Sunday getting Cas settled into the house. Dean drove him to return the rental car (no point in paying for something he didn’t need to use; Cas was one of two people in the world Dean would ever trust to drive his Baby). Cas helped to box up and label the few remaining bits of Dean’s childhood from his old room, and Dean went down to the little office room in the back to sort through more of his dad’s old, muddled papers while Cas settled his clothing into the old dresser and closet and made a couple of phone calls to New York City. 

They had simple sandwiches for lunch, and Dean cooked them a decent spaghetti dinner. He tossed together a salad and made Cas swear to never tell Dean’s oversized little brother that Dean not only made it but also _ate it_. Willingly. That night, they retired to their separate rooms. Dean changed the bedding on his own bed, grateful that he couldn’t smell Cas on the pillows or blankets; it made it much easier to keep his hands off himself. 

Monday dawned with threatening thunderstorms, and Dean should have taken them for the warning they were. 

The first week of Cas at the shop made Dean wish he could scrub his memory. Cas struggled through finding paperwork in the office, coming out often to find Dean and complain about the lack of a logical system. Rather than getting out earlier from having someone else to go over the books, Dean found them both staying later and later as Cas set stack after stack of paper in front of him, demanding that Dean explain what every sheet meant. 

On day two, Cas had stormed out of the office in such a state that he paid no attention to where he was going. He tripped over a freshly delivered box of parts and small boxes of bolts and nuts spilled across the floor. Several of them popped open, and Garth nearly cried as he watched half of those tumble into the cavity of the oil change bay. The shouting match that followed echoed into the waiting room where Dean was explaining the (very expensive) engine work that needed to be done on a customer’s car. The customer’s face went from alarmed to disapproving, and Dean spent several minutes trying to convince her that the whole garage wasn’t actually that unprofessional.

Dean dragged both Cas and Garth into his own office to tell them off. He considered, just for a moment, sending them both home. Permanently.

Friday night, Dean had plans to meet Charlie and Gilda at the Roadhouse for dinner and a few drinks. He took Cas along, even though they were still somewhat at odds about all the delays and frustrations of the week before. 

“So how are you settling in at the garage?” Charlie asked Cas. One of her hands was under the table, obviously clasped tightly in Gilda’s. 

“It’s...harder than I imagined it would be,” Cas began. And then, with a mutinous look at Dean, he launched into a very unflattering description of the state of Dean’s systems. He covered the outdated appointment book, the daily duties that were frequently scribbled out on torn pieces of scratch paper, and the impossibility of finding invoices and bills in the mess that often cluttered the reception desk. “And, worst of all,” he ended with a smirk, “Dean keeps all of his own books on _paper_. Not a proper spreadsheet in sight.”

Charlie pulled her hand free from Gilda’s and set both elbows on the table, linking her fingers together and tapping her knuckles against her lips.

“Come over to my apartment tomorrow,” Charlie said, her eyes going hazy and distant. “I think I can hook you up with some solutions.”

Dean woke on Saturday to the rumble of Baby pulling out of the driveway. He spent the afternoon digging further through the office, setting aside boxes of paperwork for Cas to check through for important things. He emptied two of the filing cabinets and moved them into the hall. Most of the desk drawers were filled with empty booze bottles and cups with dried-out mold. All of _that_ went into the trash. The small center drawer was locked, and Dean set about trying to pick it open. When he still hadn’t accomplished it by suppertime, Dean threw down the wire he’d been using and went upstairs to change out of his dusty, cobwebby clothing. 

He texted Cas, asking if he was going to be home anytime soon, and a reply came back shortly, assuring Dean that he would bring Baby home shortly. A second text followed saying that Charlie would be following Cas to the house to take Cas back to her place. Dean sighed and decided that meant he would be eating alone.

Probably a good night for a little Creole food.

Two hours later, sitting in a booth at Benny’s restaurant while Benny takes a break, Dean grumbled out all his frustration about having Cas around the garage.

“I mean, it’s great to see him,” Dean said, washing down a bit of peach pie with a gulp of Benny’s too-sweet sweet tea. “But he’s criticized every bit of how I run my business. Except for the car-fixing part, and I think that’s just because he doesn’t know enough about _that_.”

Benny had sat sideways in the booth, his long legs stretched out into the aisle between tables, booted feet crossed at the ankles. 

“Chief,” he said slowly, his Cajun drawl coming across heavier than usual, “you’ve been complaining about how you run your business since you took the place over. So what’s the real problem here?”

“He’s just getting on my nerves,” Dean mumbled, shoving one of the last few pieces of rice around on his plate. They’ve gone cold, and Dean felt like his insides had gone cold along with them. “Can’t he just...just stay in his lane?”

“Your books are his lane, Chief.” Benny tipped his head a little, oddly reminding Dean of Cas in that moment. His eyes were blue, too, but not nearly so bright as Cas’s. A pale blue, icy and beautiful in their own way, but not as hypnotizing as the ocean-and-sunshine blue of Cas’s irises.. “And it sounds like he’s _doing_ something about your little clerical problem. So what’s eating you?”

“He’s single.” The admission slipped out before Dean could stop it. “Shit. I wasn’t supposed to talk about that. He...he’s not ready to tell anyone yet.”

Benny hummed in understanding and folded his legs under the table, sitting up on the edge of the booth, massive shoulders bunching as he folded his arms against the table. “And you’re still interested.”

“I’m not...I wasn’t...I haven’t…” Dean stammered madly, trying to figure out how to get himself out of the hole his mouth had dug for him.

“Please, Dean.” Benny reached one giant paw across the table to cover Dean’s hand. “It’s been obvious to those of us that know you since you were about seventeen years old. Have you told him?”

“Why the _hell_ would I tell him that?” Dean jerked his hand away and sat up straight and stiff. “I’m not going to fuck things up between us. Not when I’ve just gotten him back in my life.”

“You keep telling yourself lies, Dean,” Benny said ominously as he pushed himself to his feet, “and you’re going to start believing your own bullshit.”

Cas stayed gone all through Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. He finally got home just before Dean sat down to eat leftover spaghetti on Sunday evening.

“I think you’re going to approve of what Charlie came up with,” Cas said around a mouthful. “Your life is about to get easier, Dean.”

Dean smiled back at Cas’s crinkled eyes, but his insides twisted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure if he was worried about his business or about his feelings, but, either way, he didn’t know what to expect from the next workweek.

Monday morning, Cas and Dean barely spoke to one another. Cas, apparently exhausted by his weekend with Charlie, steadily downs coffee while Dean toasts and butters bread for them both to share. They drop into the car, and Dean drove to work, watching Cas slowly perk up the closer they got. 

“This is going to be good,” Cas said to Dean with a roguish grin before he climbed out of the car and headed into the office. He carried a laptop and a pair of tablets that Dean had never seen before Cas had carried them out to the car. Dean watched him unlock the front door and shook his head with a sigh. Whatever Cas was planning, Dean would try to accept it and just get on with his job.

By the end of everyone’s lunch breaks, the mechanics were all moving smoothly from one job to the next via text alerts. The end of Tuesday saw Dean with a neat stack of printed receipts (no oily fingerprints to be seen). An hour after the shop closed on Wednesday, Dean found himself staring at a neat inventory list of things needing to be purchased and estimated delivery dates.

It was the most beautiful thing Dean had ever seen inside his shop. 

Second to Baby. And maybe Cas.

“I’m training Becky,” Cas told him, closing out the order tab and pulling up the scheduling software. “And this weekend I’ll show you how to use everything in here. This’ll make your life easier, I hope.”

Dean looked at Cas, sitting behind Dean’s own desk, and wondered how it would feel to lean down and press his mouth against Cas’s full, chapped, pink lips. But Dean had his best friend back in his life, and he found Cas to still be every bit as funny, odd, brilliant, infuriating, easy to talk to, and comfortable to listen to as he had been before. He counted himself lucky to find that Cas– the fundamental Cas, beneath the grown-up exterior and college degree– had actually not changed a bit. Dean couldn’t– _wouldn’t_ do anything to mar the closeness that had grown up between them again.

“Thanks, Cas.” Dean dropped his hand onto Cas’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “I don’t know what I’d do without you here.”

*****

Nearly two months had passed since Cas had moved into Dean’s old room. His luggage finally found him, three weeks after he’d settled into Dean’s house, but he still lounged around the house in Dean’s clothing most of the time when he wasn’t at work. One Sunday evening, Dean wandered in from the garage to find Cas sitting at the kitchen table, computer open, paying bills for his apartment back in New York.

“I don’t know why you’re still paying that.” 

It was not the first time Dean has brought it up, and Cas’s eyes narrowed in warning.

“My belongings will be thrown away or sold at auction if I fail to pay my rent.” Cas shrugged, frowning.

“It’s _stupid_ ,” Dean snapped, walking to the sink to get a glass of water. He gulped it down and set the glass down with a loud _clunk_ on the counter. “You live _here_ now, and you should just–”

“I am _staying_ here,” Cas corrected him sharply, standing up quickly enough that the chair scraped across the floor with a squeak. 

“Goddamnit, Cas.” Dean grabbed his hair with both hands and took a deep, slow breath through his nose. He scrubbed his palms over his face and then leaned his hands on the edge of the counter. Cas walked up behind him, stopping close enough that his breath puffed against the back of Dean’s neck. Dean didn’t dare turn around, afraid that he’d lose what little sense he had and pull Cas into his arms, try to kiss him into submission. “You’re still paying rent on some fancy place in New York, but you’re making next to nothing at the shop.”

“My savings are quite ext–” 

“I don’t care if you’re as rich as Rockefeller,” Dean cut him off, clenching his hands into fists. “It’s not going to last forever, and it’s _ridiculous_ to keep wasting money on a place you don’t live anymore. Just pack it all up and bring it home.”

“That _is_ my home, Dean.” Cas’s hand landed heavily on Dean’s shoulder and pulled hard, spinning him around. “My _child_ lives in New York. My _job_ is in New York.”

“How the _hell_ do you still have a job after being here for nearly two months, Cas?” Dean tried to match Cas’s glare even as he felt his own anger beginning to melt into something empty and painful in his belly. If Cas left, Dean doubted he’d ever come back. And Dean _wanted_ him to come back. 

No. Dean wanted him to _stay_.

Forever.

“I had quite some leave accrued,” Cas paced away across the kitchen and then back. He folded his arms over his chest and slouched down to rest his butt against the edge of the counter beside Dean. “I didn’t...I hadn’t taken any days off in...in quite some time.”

“Why do you want to go back to it?” Dean asked, hearing the question come out quiet and plaintive. He meant _why do you want to leave me_ , but he couldn’t bear to ask that question. “You said you hate it there. You told me you...you said you wanted to quit.”

“I don’t know that my employment is any of your business.” Cas looked away and cleared his throat. 

He still looked so goddamned _good_ in Dean’s clothes, the soft cotton of the much-washed concert shirt conforming to his chest and shoulders. It wasn’t _fair_ that Dean wanted him so badly when he was clearly making plans to vanish again. It wasn’t fair that Dean didn’t just love the memory of Cas, but that he found present-Cas just as lovable and wonderful as his past self had been. Maybe even moreso.

“Since you’ve been working at the shop with me, and since you leaving will leave me even more shorthanded than ever,” Dean snapped, pushing off the counter and walking to the table, out of reach of temptation, “I think youre employment has a helluva lot to do with me!”

The garage was safer territory than Dean’s feelings.

“I told you I would help you out, and I have.” Cas hunched his shoulders further. “But it’s nearly time for me to go _home_.”

Dean glanced over to see Cas wearing his mulish face: jaw set, lips pressed together, eyebrows drawn down over flashing eyes. Dean suspected that it said something about him that he found angry Cas hotter than ten suns. 

“I...I don’t want you to go.” Dean nearly whispered the words. “Having you here has been...It’s been good. And I...I’ve missed you, Cas. I need–” He cut himself off before he embarrassed himself further, before he said too much

Cas looked over at him with wide eyes and then turned away, the back of his neck flushing brilliantly.

“I can’t move on your whims, Dean.” He cleared his throat, and then his shoulders heaved in a giant sigh. “It’s been good being here, it really has. But...but I...I have to get back to my real life. It’s...it’s not what I planned, and it’s not the best. But it’s _mine_. And...and Claire….”

Dean blinked back tears, looking at his reflection on the window glass against the dark of the night. He sniffled, hoping Cas didn’t hear it. 

“No, man.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, feeling like he was blowing out all of his own secret dreams at the same time. “I...I get it. Claire wins. Of course she does. She’s your _kid_. I mean, Ben’s not even mine, and I’d give up anything for him. Everything.”

Ben was the son of Dean’s ex-girlfriend, Lisa. They’d gotten together just out of high school, back when Dean and Cas still spoke somewhat regularly on the phone. Ben hadn’t been interested in being a dad, so he’d climbed onto his motorcycle and driven away as soon as the stick turned blue. Dean had taken to the kid, and, even when things didn’t work out the way Lisa had hoped, Dean didn’t want to simply vanish on him, the way his father had. He still saw him at least one weekend a month, often quite a bit more. In the summer, when Ben played Little League, Dean saw him at every practice and every game. Ben had met Cas the third weekend Cas was in town. After a few minutes of deep suspicion, Ben had taken to Cas almost like a second dad in spite of their differences or maybe because of them. Ben was enough like Dean that Dean probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

“He _is_ yours, Dean.” Cas’s voice, close and soft, made Dean jump, and he turned around to find Cas just a few inches away, looking at him with warm, understanding eyes. “He is yours _because_ you’d give up so much for him.”

There was a long beat of silence between them, and then Cas swallowed hard. He held Dean’s gaze steadily, but his eyes turned red around the edges, glazing across the surface with unshed tears.

“I’m...I have a flight back. Day after tomorrow.” Cas tried to smile, but all he managed was his face crooking sideways and his eyes going dark and sad. “I...I won’t stay away so long this time. I’ll...I’ll come visit you, when I can. I promise. And maybe you can drive Baby up to see me sometime. Let me show you the sights.”

Dean stepped forward into Cas’s suddenly wide-spread, waiting arms, wrapping his own arms tightly around Cas. Word of Cas’s leaving settled into his chest like a knife to the lung, but Dean forced himself to keep that held in, hidden away.

“That sounds good, man.” He tucked his nose in under Cas’s ear, inhaling hard and trying to lock the scent of Cas’s skin into his memory. “I’ll hold you to that, okay? You just...please don’t stay away. I...I really like having you back in my life.”

Cas kissed Dean’s cheek gently, warmly, lips lingering for just a second too long.

“I have liked being back.” He hugged Dean harder, whispering the words into Dean’s ear like a secret promise. “And I...I would stay, if I could.” He sighed and kissed Dean’s cheek again. “I am so, so sorry I have to go.”

Dean held on. He knew Cas didn’t mean it– the part about coming back. He’d said almost the _exact_ same words before, back when he left the first time. Dean had watched him drive away actually believing he’d see Cas again soon. As the weeks and months and finally years ticked by, he’d kept holding onto hope: hope that he’d see Cas again. Hope that he’d get to tell Cas how he felt. Hope that Cas might still feel the same. 

“You always have a place here, Cas.” Dean squeezed him harder. He tried to force his lips to open again, his mouth to speak. He tried to _make_ himself tell Cas all the things he’d been holding onto for so long, the helpless attraction, the longing, the _love_. Nothing came out. 

Instead of saying anything more, Dean just held on a little harder and nuzzled in against the side of Cas’s neck and tried to will himself to remember–this time– what Cas smelled like. How his skin felt against Dean’s lips. The way the muscles of his back flexed under Dean’s palms.

“Just call me, Cas,” he whispered finally. “Please. Just...at least that.”

“I will, Dean.” Cas kissed his cheek again. “I promise.”

And then he gently pulled away, and Dean watched him walk toward the stairs to go to his room and begin packing. Dean knew that, after Cas left, he wouldn’t be able to go up there and look around. He wished that Cas would leave something behind. A shirt that still smelled like his skin. A book he’d picked up from the secondhand shop. A letter that promised Dean that he’d be back in a week and that he loved Dean, too. Dean knew better than to hope. Hope hadn’t ever gotten him very far.

*****

Life was quieter in the two weeks after Cas left, and Dean fought to keep himself from falling into the same hole he’d been in for the months preceding Cas’s visit. Still, work continued kicking his ass, in spite of Cas and Charlie’s genius upgrades to his computer and accounting systems. He couldn’t quite manage to get himself out the door to go find anyone to keep him company on weekends; when asked, he said he just didn’t feel like it, that he had too much to do and focus on around the house. It was true, too. Dean had finished clearing out the office and started in on Sammy’s room. He had a stack of things to show Sam on their usual Sunday afternoon Skype conversation that he was sure would make the giant moose laugh like a braying donkey.

Home almost on a Friday night, Dean crawled into his bed with a battered copy of _Cat’s Cradle_ that he had found while clearing out Sam’s bedroom. He hadn’t read it since high school, and he was in the mood to lose himself in some good prose. Maybe it could get him out of the loneliness and silence of his house and his head for a little bit. 

The buzz of the doorbell through the empty house startled the shit out of him, nearly made him throw the book across the room.

Dean bounced to his feet, dropping the book and glancing at the clock. Barely gone nine, not late enough to entirely preclude a friend dropping by, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would show up then without an emergency.

The ringing, buzzing sound of the bell howled through the house again when Dean got to the upstairs hallway.

“ _Jesus_!” Dean grumbled, stumbling down the stairs. He missed the last one and staggered a few steps, bumping into the wall and a box of crap from his dad’s office before he got himself upright and moving toward the front door again. 

The doorbell rang again, shrill and long. Someone holding down the button longer than was decent.

“I’m coming, a’right!” He rubbed a hand over his face, tugging the hem of his t-shirt with the other.

In the two weeks that Cas had been gone, Dean hadn’t gotten _nearly_ enough sleep. He’d been staying late at work, and he’d never admit that it was mostly to avoid going home to his too-lonely supper and his extra-empty bed. When he did get home, he mostly crawled under the covers and imagined conversations that never had and never would happen with his impossible best friend.

The bell buzzed again, and Dean threw the door open, sharp words already slicing their way free from his tongue.

“For fuck’s sake, what do you–”

“Please, Dean.” Cas said, his voice calm and level. He looked brighter, eyes sparkling, and his always unruly hair standing out further than ever. Dean stared at him, at his navy blue suit and his twisted necktie, at the wry lift to the corner of his lips. Cas licked his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment before going on. “Please don’t use that kind of language in front of my child.”

“I’m in _middle school_ , Dad.” A sunny blonde girl stood beside Cas, rolling the big blue eyes she’d clearly gotten from her father. “I’ve heard the word fuck before.”

“Claire Novak! Watch your mouth.” Cas shot her a look, part exasperation and part fondness. It was _exactly_ the same look that middle school Castiel used to send Dean’s direction, and Dean’s heart swelled under his ribs.

“What are you _doing_ here, Cas?” Dean wanted to reach for him, but he was _certain_ that their first kiss shouldn’t happen in front of Cas’s kid, even if– and it was such a _big_ if– Cas was inclined to kiss back.

“I came home, Dean. And Claire is off for the summer, so she will be joining us for three months.” Cas’s eyebrows crinkled together worriedly. “My things are on a truck that should be here in a few days. If that’s...If that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay.” Dean finally stepped forward, arms spread wide to pull Cas into a hug. “She’s _family_ , Cas. We always have room for family.”

*****

_OMG U wont believe this!!! Dad and his bf said goodnight and went into DIFF ROOMS!!!!! Like I don’t know what they’re gonna do as soon as they think I’m asleep. U shld c the way they looked @ each other. They R SOOOOO in <3 <3 <3 Old ppl are so GROSS_

Claire hit send on the text and then put her phone on the charger on the nightstand. The room Dad and Dean had given her was actually pretty cool. At supper, Dean had promised to take her to the hardware store the following week to pick out paint, and Dad had said he’d help her get started on fixing it up the next week. 

Dean seemed okay. She just wished he and Dad would get over themselves and start acting normal. All the staring and standing too close without actually touching was starting to get kinda creepy. Maybe she needed to make a friend to go to a sleepover with, really, really soon. _Anything _so they would get a chance to work out all the tension in the place. Clearly they had missed each other while Dad went back to NYC to get everything worked out.__

__On the other hand, she appreciated that Dean didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. And that he was trying to include her. _So_ much more than her mom’s new husband ever did. She was pretty sure _he_ didn’t want her around._ _

__On the wall across from the bed hung a picture of a pretty woman with blonde hair and green eyes, holding a baby, a little boy leaning against her side. She had a nice smile, and Claire settled in to sleep, feeling watched over, safe, and warm._ _

**Author's Note:**

> There's one more part to this series, and the outlining has begun. With my life over the last three years, goodness only knows how long it'll take to show up. Still, in the meantime, ENJOY!


End file.
